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Authors: NOIRE,Kiki Swinson

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BOOK: Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless

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“I did what we planned to do! Remember whose fuckin’ idea this was in the first place. Now shut the fuck up and get on the phone and make them believe us now!” Eric growled cruelly. I knew he was right. This had all been my idea. All for revenge. I never meant for it to turn out like this.

“Start fuckin’ movin’! I’m gonna snap the fuckin’ pictures of his half-dead ass. Just in case your fucking mother don’t believe that this shit is serious,” Eric continued in the same cruel, ruthless voice as before. It amazed me how he could just stand in a pool of a helpless person’s blood and not even care. Eric was definitely not the man I thought he was. My vision had been clouded. Too clouded.

“I—I ... can’t!” I wailed. My stomach was cramping and my entire body trembled. I couldn’t stop staring at my father.
What have I done? What I have I done?
I repeated to myself over and over again in my head. I couldn’t help but think that this was all my fault. I had done all of this to myself and to my family. Now here I stood feeling like the worst person alive. Now I wanted to just save him—take him and run far away from Eric and his goons that were surrounding him. I wanted to ask for forgiveness for being such a selfish and spoiled little bitch.

“Help me ... Me ... gan.” My father had finally come back into consciousness. He whispered my name weakly through his very battered lips. That broke my heart. I was so happy he was still alive, but his words and hearing him rasp out my name sent a pang of hurt throughout my body and a cold chill down my spine. How could I have done something so wretched to my own flesh and blood?

“Shut the fuck up! She can’t help you. The only one that can help you is your wife and your fucking accountant!” Eric barked, rushing over to where I was standing. “You think I’m fuckin’ playing, right?” Eric hissed, walking over and kicking my father again in the side. It was like he was taking pleasure in the shit now. Like he relished someone else’s pain and agony.

“Aggh!” my father screamed out in pain. I was surprised he could still muster any screams. I had not even realized I was daydreaming and hesitating to make the call. “Stop it! You said you wouldn’t hurt him!” I screeched. The tears were even more uncontrollable now.

“Bitch, if you don’t pick up the phone and dial somebody to get the money I will fuckin’ kill him and pin all this shit on you! Or better yet, I might just kill your ass too,” Eric barked. His face was so serious.

I knew when he was bluffing and this wasn’t one of those moments. My hands were trembling fiercely as I dialed the familiar number. I knew that if I didn’t do it, Eric would be committing murder for real. I clutched my cell phone tightly against my ear and prayed that the accountant answered. Eric was standing over me menacingly as he brandished his gun so both of us could see it.

“Hello,” I breathed into the phone through the computerized voice disguiser. I swallowed hard when I recognized the familiar voice on the other end of the phone. I felt like I would piss on myself. Eric snatched the phone from me. He could see that I had frozen up like a deer caught in headlights.

“We want three million in cash for his release. We ain’t callin’ again! If you involve the cops, he dies. No second chances! No more calls either!” Eric screamed into the machine.

My heart sank as I looked into the battered face of my father. I felt a sickening mixture of emotions. One part anger, one part regret, and a large part fear. I wished that my parents had never treated me so badly just because they didn’t approve of my lifestyle. We could’ve worked it out. I wished that I hadn’t gotten so mad at them that I wanted revenge. That I would have done almost anything to make them hurt as much as I did at the time. I wished that I wasn’t raised to be so greedy and self-centered. But most of all, at that moment, I wished that I could rewind time. I wanted this all to be a bad dream. Too bad it wasn’t.

My Punishment

“C
’mon, we gotta move him. Your mom’s called and she got the money up.” Eric nudged me out of my sleep. I had finally conked out after a long, losing battle trying to fight my sleep. I lifted up my head and it immediately started pounding. I couldn’t believe that my mother had really gotten up that much money.

“Where is she going to meet us?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

“Down near Princess Anne Road where there is not too much traffic. We will release him to whoever drops off the money. I’m telling you, Megan, if I even feel the slightest bit like your mother went to the fuckin’ cops, I’m popping his ass,” Eric threatened.

I was so fed up and sick of his fucking threats. I just rolled my eyes. I wanted this all to be over with. “How is he now?” I asked. Eric had separated me from my father because he said I was too emotional after he beat my father up.

“He is alive.... That’s all you need to know. You better act like you with me. If I think I have to question your fuckin’ loyalty this shit ain’t gonna work. Tell me what it is, Megan,” Eric snapped at me. He was jumpy and antsy as hell.

“I am always loyal to you, Eric. You took care of me when they tossed me out. I am down with you until the end,” I said robotically. The truth was, I was deathly afraid of him now. I saw firsthand just what he had been capable of. I was telling him what he wanted to hear. The truth was if I could get out of his sight I would’ve run straight to the cops and given us all up.

After my father’s beating, of course, Eric gave me some shit to get me high. I had shot up a half a bag of meth before Eric announced that it was time for us to leave for the exchange. My mother had called back. I was high so I was more at ease than I thought I would be. That is, until I saw my father. “Oh God,” I moaned when I looked at his battered face and body. He could hardly stand up as they led him outside. My father shuffled his feet like maybe his legs were fractured on top of the broken ribs. Everything on his body was grossly swollen. Finally he succumbed to the pain of his injuries and he fell.

“Get up, old man. You only got a few more minutes with us. We get our money and you get to a hospital,” Eric said to him. I was silently praying that my father just kept his mouth shut and didn’t get smart. If Eric had hit him again, I’m sure he would’ve died.

“Megan ... p-p-please. I need a doctor,” my father whispered.

“Daddy, this is almost over. As soon as we get the money, you can go to a doctor,” I said in a soft tone. That garnered an evil look from Eric. I didn’t much give a fuck at that point.

We all started out of the warehouse and that’s when all this shit came to an abrupt end. I can’t say that when I heard the shouts I wasn’t kind of relieved. I really was glad it was all over.

“Put your fucking hands in the air!” I heard a loud booming voice call out.

I whirled around, but it was too late for me to even scream or react. I was thrown down to the ground with a force that had knocked the wind out of me. I could hear the battering of feet around my head. The police were running in every direction. They were screaming out commands and telling people to put their hands up, drop weapons. It was truly like a scene out of television. There were guns drawn and when I looked up, I saw that they had Eric on the ground as well. He looked helpless and stupid all at the same time. A real strong sense of hatred flitted through me. Hatred for myself was probably stronger than anything I felt.

“Eric Chambers and Megan Rich, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Gavin Rich and the murder of Yvette Everett,” one of the heavily armed police officers said calmly. I knew my punishment for this crime wouldn’t be light.

When I was hoisted up off the floor I noticed a big SWAT truck, FBI vehicles, and a ton of other law enforcement vehicles. We were in that fucking warehouse and never knew they were closing in on us. We were so fucking stupid and now we were caught.

“Don’t hurt my daughter,” I heard my father say as they dragged me into a paddy wagon. He was on a stretcher getting ready to be loaded into a waiting ambulance. I couldn’t even say a word to him. I couldn’t even continue to look at him. I was too ashamed about what I had done to him. I knew I deserved nothing less than the whole book of the law to be thrown at my ass. I was never going to be the same shamelessly rich girl. All of the things I took for granted had flashed before my young eyes.

“This is all your fault, Megan! You fuckin’ bitch! You set me up! I can’t go back to prison! I won’t go back to prison!” Eric was screaming.

I just shook my head as a female officer pushed the top of my head down and loaded me into the back of the paddy wagon. Eric was screaming like a lunatic, sounding so stupid. One of the cops told him to shut the fuck up and when Eric got smart, the cop hit his ass with his baton. I kind of smiled at that. Anything that would cause Eric Chambers pain, I was all for it. It served him right. If he had just stuck to the original plan none of this shit would’ve happened.

I learned while preparing for my trial that all of the mistakes Eric and I had made during the botched ransom kidnapping had backfired. First of all, Eric making those fucking calls from a landline so he could use that stupid voice machine allowed the police, who my mother had contacted right away, to trace the calls back to the warehouse. Then, Eric’s little goons thought they had taken the video from the only surveillance camera in my father’s office, but they hadn’t. There was a digital video recorder out back, so when the police investigated Ms. Everett’s murder, they were also able to see us all clearly on the video. They had the entire kidnapping on tape, with me standing there doing absolutely nothing about it.

When the jury came back within two hours with a guilty verdict, I wasn’t surprised. Still, it hurt. Then to top it all off, I found out that Eric had struck a deal with the prosecution and pinned the entire incident on me. He had made up some story about me convincing him to kidnap my father so I could get insurance money. Eric got a lighter sentence for his cooperation. Me, the shameless rich girl who would’ve done anything for a man ... Well, I got just what I deserved.

Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

So as I sit here in my cell penning this story about one of the most shameless acts in history, I will send this message. Rich does not equal happy.

Puttin’ Shame in the Game

Noire

L
ike everybody else, Noble Browne had his shortcomings, but baggin-and-taggin the honeys wasn’t one of them. You see, Noble was a fifteen-second man. The kind of cat who could spot a chick, lay it down, and get the bizz over and done with in fifteen seconds or less.

Nah, Noble wasn’t no Johnny-quick in the sheets, like you might be thinking. He was a traffic cop. One of them red-light, green-light dudes you see standing in the middle of a busy street. Arms all waving, whistles be blowing. You know, they be holding it down and making sure shit flows righteously and everybody stays in their lane.

Noble had joined the police force straight out of college, and he was one of those super rookies you hear about every once in a while. It had only taken him two short years to slide into a spot on the narcotics squad, and when the lead detective came looking for a volunteer to go undercover, Noble knew he was the right man for the job.

For five years Noble wallowed in the trenches pulling off crazy covert capers. He’d worked on some of the most dangerous undercover drug stings in Brooklyn, and the streets fit him like a hand in a glove. Noble looked like the streets, he spoke with the tongue of the streets, and he had the mad gorilla swagger of the streets too. In fact, he’d become a master at worming his way into airtight drug cells, gaining a criminal trust, and getting solid with the capos.

As an undercover agent Noble jetted from territory to territory, dipping in on the sly—just long enough to get the goods on kingpins and connects—and then setting up the house of cards so it could get knocked all the way down.

But out of nowhere a string of bad luck had choked Noble’s shit up, and his entire career changed. And when the smoke finally cleared, Noble found himself ass-out, forced off the narcotics squad. Dude ended up directing vehicular traffic in the city, which for a dedicated street cop like Noble was just half a step up from donut-eating desk duty.

Now, check it. Being reassigned to traffic enforcement woulda prolly cold-crushed a lesser man’s ego. After all, helping blind old ladies cross the street was nowhere near as gully as the rush Noble had enjoyed when he was out there pitting wits against violent criminals in Brooklyn.

But Noble wasn’t your ordinary type of guy, and none of that loss-of-status bullshit came close to fuckin’ with his self-image. Why should it? No matter how many grimy little shit balls life threw at him, Noble was an on-point nig who manned up and played the hand that was dealt him. In fact, he was an opportunist of sorts. He lived his life with his nose wide open, sniffing out the sweet opportunities that were buried deep in the shittiest of situations.

So, instead of tossin’ tan goods to trap boys and checkin’ for the stick-up kids in the cut, these days Noble was all about making friends out of everyday New Yorkers who walked the streets of midtown Manhattan.

And with his hard-body thuggish good looks on a six-foot-six-inch, muscled up frame, Noble made a
lot
of friends.

Especially with the women.

Noble admired women. All women. He found something beautiful to behold about each and every one of them, and whenever he laid his sexy gaze on a lady he made damn sure she saw her worth reflected in his eyes.

Noble liked to throw his rap down on the job, but he was also dedicated to his duties, because directing traffic was some serious shit. His area of responsibility was the busy intersection at Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan. It was a bustling commercial spot overflowing with educated chicks who had corporate jobs and ghetto needs.

Noble became a student when he stepped into his grid box. He studied the pedestrians who scurried past him every day, and after just six months of chewing on a whistle he had seen it all.

Dig, a real man could tell a lot about a woman just by the way she walked. Couldn’t no chick slang it like a New York City chick could, and watching the babes take on the borough, Noble sure liked what the fuck he saw!

There were all types of honeys walking the streets too. Like the high-heeled, dainty ass-strutters, with legs and breasts galore. Noble had ’em pegged as coffee runners and paper shredders. Straight outta the corporate office pool. These were the cold-sexy speculators who kept their shit tight from head to toe ’cause they never knew when some banked-out CEO was gonna step off on his wife and come running to the office pool for a younger, finer replacement.

And then there were those type A chicks. The corporate ladder climbers. Smart, driven, and determined to elbow their way into a world where dicks and nuts ruled. These women were real easy for Noble to spot. They wore their navy blue skirt suits and ankle-high tube socks folded down over their No nonsense panty hose. With Nikes and Reeboks laced tight on their feet, they dashed down the sidewalks of New York with powerful strides, always early, yet still in a damn rush.

Noble respected these women, he just didn’t holler at ’em. There was never a chance to. They moved like men. Like they were dashing off to a big-ball-pissin’ contest or something. Shit, even with his college degree from Morehouse, a blue-collar brothah like Noble would have to chase one of them chicks like a cracked-out purse snatcher if he wanted to get his fifteen seconds of rap in.

And then there were those women who were somewhere in the middle. These were the kind Noble liked best. They weren’t butter soft, but they weren’t man-hard, neither. They were just women. Some pretty, some just a’ight, a few were happy, a couple were sad, but almost all of them—the single ones anyway—had something in common.

They were looking for a good man.

More specifically, they were looking for a man who was holding it down in 3-D: a decent job, a nice big dick, and some damn good dental benefits.

A man like Noble Browne.

BOOK: Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless

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